"And in those simple beautiful movements I remembered what was really important in training; that consistency trumps intensity; all the time. That intensity is born from consistency. That one cannot force it, one has to lay in wait for it, patiently, instinctively, calmly and be ready to grab it when Grace lays it down in front of you."

Saturday, May 03, 2008

Danish RKC Day two

There was no day one entry because Rif was just a 'wee bit' jetlagged and out of his mind.The trip over was uneventful except for the incrediblly long time it took to get here although I do have to say that the flight from chicago to copenhagen was the best trip in an airplane I have ever taken!I thought i had entered a time warp and went back to a place and time when airlines still considered real service a part of the price of admission. from the beautiful blonde nordic flight attendants (man ,EVERYONE is tall here. I mean everyone and short is six foot!), to the TWO MEALS that were served( real food too, and incredibly good) , free movies and tv in each seat( and I was in economy), and the hot washclothes given out after each meal it seamed that I was in another world.Unfortunately the 16 hours of travel and no sleep brought me back to reality very quickly but I will say this, if all airlines were run like SAS air travel would no longer be like the bad bus ride it now is on american flights.Day one was good but tough, my group of 16 was the largest of the cert and 7 of the candidates were Italian with virtually NO english. This, I immediately realized was going to be tough.Not Brett Jones and his full team of Hungarians who didnt speak english tough, but tough enough.Luckily I was ably assisted by Dr Mark Cheng RCKTL and my Chinese brother,Jacob Sonnengard( henceforth know as Damien, for his sadistic use of the gym boss timer to keep everyone in pain with swings every 15 minutes round the clock),and Maurizio, my able assistant who translated my instructions to the Italian team.I never ceased to be amazed at the transformations of the RKC canditates from Day one to Day two but this time was the most amazing of all. I thought someone has stolen my team and replaced them with ringers who had overnight become seriously compenent and expert KB athletes who swung, snatched, clean pressed and squatted AMAZINGLY better on day two than day one! The change was nothing short of miraculous.Four candidates who failed their snatch test the first day CRUSHED it the second!And by the end of day two, when one would think these poor people would have NOthing left in the gas tank they kept getting better and better!This has been a very tough cert with Damien stopping everything every 15 minutes when the gym boss beeped so everyone could do 20 swings no matter what else was going on. FUN! 80 swings an hour from 9 am to 6 pm for two days straight adds up to a LOT of swings, in addition to the thousands of swings snatches, cleans presses and tgus the candidates also had to do.They went through it like the troopers they are; and,like at all RKC certs their form just kept getting better with each passing hour.Grease the groove to the max eh?Kenneth Jay put this cert on all by himself and did and AMAZING job all the way around. From the incredible hotel to the perfect training facility to the rock star tour buses that took us everywhere nothing was left to chance. I don't even want to imagine how hard it is to put something like this on.Mad props to Big Kenneth!Even the weather was perfect and Denmark is incredibly beautiful; spring has sprung the green fields and forests were everywhere. so clean and crispIt couldnt have been better; unless of course I could sleep but that's another story. nothing like getting up at 10 pm to go to work,lol!

Here's some video of Damien overhead squatting with the 32's while the candidates had a short break

Heres another of RKC candidate Shanti( sorry no last name) doing a tgu with the 32 kg

and last but not least Team Rif going through their five minutes snatch test to determine their Max VO 2 cadence. just a few minutes after this they went through 25 sets of snatch vo2 for their workout. I was inspired and joined in with the hitting 9 repsper 15 seconds for the first time ever!It is,after all, my snatch day.

datsit for now. hopefully I will sleep tonight. slept perfectly on day one and virtually NO sleep last night.heres hoping for more z's than just ankle circles

Hey Mark.What a pleasure to work with you, and hear your thoughts about training. Inspiring to see you do Z-health etc. all the time you were not performing. You truly are a fulltime athlete. Hope to see you soon again.Take careJacob

same hear brother, it was way cool watching you work. Hey I have to keep moving or I freeze up. full time athlete by necessity, not choice,lol.ok, that's not true :))did the z on the plane home every hour on the hour and it really helped tons.people must have thought I was nuts but that's never bothered me before.